There is another state agency that recently started working closely with my department. From our perspective, there have been severe problems with the transition. With that very brief set up, let me tell you what happened this morning. A meeting was scheduled for nine a.m. Management at our office was supposed to have a little face to face with management from their office. Mostly everyone from our office was there at nine a.m. I strolled in at around 9:10, thinking that I was late. I was, but I wasn’t. No one from the other agency was there yet. Nine-thirty rolled around and they still weren’t there. About this time we were all ready to give up, having had a little impromptu meeting on our own to pass the time. It was then that one person from their office showed up. I thought my boss’ boss would burst a seam, but she was quite pleasant. In a pleasant conversational tone she asked, “so, did you think that the meeting was scheduled for nine-thirty?” In a somewhat dismissive tone, the representative from this other agency said, “no, I knew it was scheduled for nine… I tried to rush here as fast as I could.”

Forty minutes late and it’s all because she couldn’t rush faster? You’d think she missed the news about good ‘ole Alex Bell’s little invention. Is it any wonder that relations between the two offices are not particularly chummy?